Local Students to Compete in National Academic Olympics

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By Karla Ortiz

The Mexican Academy of Sciences is again holding its national academic contests for K-12 students all over Mexico this year, and 12 of the students representing Guanajuato State this year hail from San Miguel de Allende.

This year, the Colegio Francisco Javier Mina (Colegio Multicultural Siglo XXI) of San Miguel will send a total of 12 of their students to the Academy’s Math finals and History finals.

In the History finals, the San Miguel student representatives are: Tabatha Salcedo, elementary school sixth grade. Roberto Pérez, high school second year. Emiliano Martínez, high school third year.

Since 1996, the Mexican Academy of Sciences has held the Spring Mathematics Contest, dedicated to secondary school students, and since 1998, the Mathematics Parrot Competition. Since 2006, it has also hosted the Mexican History Olympiad, organized jointly by the Mexican Academy of Sciences and Fundación Televisa.

More than 160,000 students participated in the last edition of this Olympiad nationwide, and this year there are 47 participants overall representing Guanajuato State. The aim of the contests is to have fun and for competitiveness, and thus encourage interest in mathematics among the young participants. In addition, these competitions have served to enable the directors and teachers of the different participating institutions to reflect and exchange experiences on mathematics education. This has led to national discussions on an appropriate education curriculum in which other schools in San Miguel have participated.